A Tiny Breakthrough Can Make All The Difference in Your Relationship

Chris — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:43:20 +0000

If you want to change how things are in your relationship, then it’s up to you!

Your partner is NOT going to change just because you want a healthier relationship. All humans are predominantly driven by an element of WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?

The first step has to start with you.

When you make changes in your attitude, perspectives, awareness, and behaviour, that’s when the dynamics in your relationship start to change.

Your partner may make not one jot of change! But still your relationship is different. It may improve just because you are in a different head space. Even if it doesn’t shift your partner’s attitudes, perspectives, awareness, or behaviour, you are still better informed about your relationship. You’re in a better place to make informed decisions.

That’s why I regularly work with just one party in a couple relationship. Because it’s amazing what can happen if you take back some sense of control or even if you “let go”.

... like ripples in a pool ...

Thanks to Karen Wallace from The Calm Space‘s recommendation, I was reading a simple blog post by Miki De Vivo of The Still Space.

She wrote about how she made one change in her life and how it created a little win for her as a parent. I loved how she sat with this little tiny win that perhaps only she would notice, and felt satisfied. She knew it wasn’t world-shaking, but it just might shake HER world!

Wouldn’t you like that to happen in your world? How much of a difference would it make if that little change was in your relationship? How would that impact your happiness and contentment?

Like ripples in a pool, a tiny attitudinal change can help you become less stressed about how your relationship is being shaken up by parenting, money woes, your sex life, sharing the chores, or even that intrusive Mother-In-Law!

Would you like to try it and see?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chris Owen of Pink Apple

I’m a Melbourne-based Relationship Advisor for couples who fear that their second marriage could fall apart just like their first did.

I help them by reskilling them, in effective relationship behaviours, so they can be confident they won’t go back to old patterns!

Why not follow me on Facebook where I share my own and all sorts of other resources?

Warm regards

Chris Owen

Thriving not just Surviving

admin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:29:31 +0000

“If we had no winter,
the spring would not be so pleasant;
if we did not sometimes taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be so welcome.”

– Anne Bradstreet

I've spent my morning reading Paul McCarthy's The Survival Trap: Why some Businesses Thrive and Others Struggle to Survive in Tough Economic Times.

No matter what your perspective and how much knowledge you have, doing some motivational or professional reading/development will always give you at least ONE insight that you hear differently and makes you take action.

That's happened this morning.

How come?

Well I was just doing what I thought was an obligation. Doing some preliminary reading before I went to a meeting.

I was (and am) looking forward to hearing Paul McCarthy speak at the Manningham Business Network's monthly Open Meeting, the first for 2009. As a member of MBN, I have heard some interesting speakers and was a strong advocate of getting Paul to speak.

McCarthy is a terrific speaker – inspiring but on a really practical level! (I need to hear some "hows" along with my inspiration, or it won't get me far. And Paul delivers that in spades!)

In fact his is one of the few monthly newsletter emails that have survived my recent RUTHLESS culling of newsletter subscriptions that FLOOD my Inbox! (Come on you know what I mean. Have you checked how many you're subscribed to?)

So because the meeting's coming up and I am a committed and interested member, I wanted to do Paul the courtesy of being ready. At last this morning, I've got around to reading this new e-book The Survival Trap.

And of course, I've had my aha moment.

Bizarrely enough it came when McCarthy started talking about failure.

When people ask me about how I have achieved the success I’ve enjoyed in my life, I know what they really want is a list of the steps they should take. The truth is, I could boil down the essence of success into two words – Fail faster. I know you might think it sounds crazy, but this one step can have the greatest impact on the sort of results you produce in your life.

Now, unlike my eager little readers here, I confess I have the occasional moment of self-doubt!

I had one recently and I was throwing that word "failure" about a bit in conversation with my ever-helpful and endlessly-challenging coach Karen Wallace. She jumped on it from a great height and gave my backside a bit of a kick. A kick that I felt again when I read those words this morning.

I realized I just hadn't been failing fast enough to get me moving.

Those words got me so motivated that I stopped reading and came here to write and share with you the opportunity to read the book and get your aha moment faster!

McCarthy is offering this book for fr*ee. It's about 80-ish pages in big font and VERY easy reading. You even get a chance to win some coaching from him. So there's no loss in this. It's taken me about 45 minutes to read – but yes I am a fast reader! Even so, you'll hardly be taxed by reading it, and WILL get an aha moment no matter how extensive your experience of business or personal development is!

Go on! Go to it!

And if you need another quote to get you thinking, here it is:

“I believe that I was lucky to have suffered. Some people don’t realise that in suffering there is great potential, because if you are deprived for any reason, politically, socially, financially, or otherwise, and if you set your mind in the right direction, you will find that the only way to survive is for you to excel, by being better.”
– Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

See you at the Open Meeting on Tuesday?

If not, till next time …

Chris

________________________________________________________________________________________
Chris Owen is Pink Apple. At Pink Apple, Chris shares the Secrets of Successful Relationships. She's a co-author of Save Our Christmas Sanity: The Christmas Calm Manual; and a regular contributor to The Calm Space, Joyful Jubilant Learning, and You! the member's magazine for Real Mums.

Pink Apple » Karen Wallace

A Tiny Breakthrough Can Make All The Difference in Your Relationship

Thriving not just Surviving